It was now a full week since Xandra had joined her little group of friends and Willow was in the middle of her daily core and body qi exercise.

  Aunt Jieun was watching as usual, and with the revelation that the exercise contained conceptual energy she viewed it as vitally important that she observed every session. Her aunt had even talked about stopping the exercises altogether, but Harmony explained something to her after that and all conversations of that nature ceased. Whatever her spirit had said to her had clearly disquieted her aunt, but Willow already knew that if she stopped doing her exercises bad things would happen.

  She had maybe underestimated the extent of the potential consequences, but she had no intention of stopping anyways so it was probably fine.

  Willow was getting to the end of a yang cycle when her body suddenly shifted in a way that almost broke her concentration. She was nearing the end of her daily session anyways so she wound down the cycling of energies in a way that was now comfortably familiar to her and opened her eyes.

  “Aunt Jieun?” She called hesitantly. She didn’t want to get her spirits in trouble again, but she had promised her aunt that she’d inform her immediately if something odd happened to her body. The girl was fairly certain this qualified.

  Jieun immediately grew more alert and concerned as her niece was clearly uncomfortable about something. “What is it Willow, did something go wrong?”

  “Not sure.” She said with a frown, her brow scrunched up in worry. “Something weird happened at the end there, and I’m hoping you can help?”

  Her aunt moved quickly to her side and grabbed her hand, sending a pulse of qi into her niece in order to determine the cause of her discomfort. She checked her core, and aside from its larger size and thicker layers of energy it seemed whole.

  “Are you in pain, and if so, where?” She asked in concern.

  She fidgeted a little in discomfort on the bed. “No pain, just weirded out by what’s happened.”

  Her aunt raised a brow. “And what exactly has happened, Willow?”

  She showed her.

  Aunt Jieun sighed and pinched the bridge of her nose.

  “Change. Harmony. Come out.”

  A moment passed with no response.

  “Now!”

  The twins of light and dark emerged, both looking uncomfortable at the idea of facing her aunt after what just happened.

  “Why is my niece now my nephew?” Jieun said with deadly calm.

  Willow blinked. Is that what happened? She became a boy?

  Neat.

  Change decided to be the one to answer, his singular black eye looking anywhere but towards Jieun. “Her body reached a saturation point in yang qi. Combined with her age and the trickle of conceptual change I was providing, it resulted in…” He gestured vaguely at Willow. “This.”

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  “How does that make sense?” Asked the girl turned boy. “What’s yang qi and how old I am gotta do with it?”

  Harmony addressed her friend. “Due to how young you are, your body is already growing and changing daily, this makes it easier for your body to accept a more sudden shift like the one you have just experienced.” She paused for a moment as she gathered her thoughts.

  “The reason yang qi affected you in this way in particular is because for humans, yin qi is most compatible with women, and yang qi is most compatible with men. Those who cultivate such energies usually have exaggerated traits belonging to the corresponding gender. What happened to you is merely an extreme of that effect.”

  Was that why Li Wanyu was so pretty? A question for later.

  “Yet I’ve never heard of anyone who’s bound to yin or yang spirits ever fully swapping between man and woman, not even in stories.” Jieun said skeptically. “You’d think that something like this would’ve come up among the Li and Hao clans.”

  She stopped for a moment.

  “Then again, knowing those two they’d likely hide such a thing to save face…”

  “We wouldn’t know anything about that!” Chimed Change, clearly growing more confident due to not being yelled at yet. “But unless they had a spirit with a concept like mine I doubt it’d be a common issue.”

  “So it’s entirely your fault then.” Jieun said pointedly.

  Change panicked a bit, moving a bit erratically around the room.“Eck- Well… Probably? Yeah.” He hung his head a bit in defeat.

  Her aunt closed her eyes and took a deep breath. “Can you two change her back?”

  “It should happen naturally.” Harmony answered quickly. “When she next does her core exercise and floods her body with yin it should default back to her original state.”

  “I’m sensing a but.” Jieun said while meeting the small spirit’s starry eyes.

  “However she will transition to her current form once more when she floods her body with yang, and anytime thereafter.”

  Oh. Well that’ll make doing the exercise more annoying. The change wasn’t painful or anything but the shift was still uncomfy and could potentially make her… him?

  Not figuring that out right now.

  It would make losing concentration during the exercise more likely for a time.

  Jieun looked between everyone involved and finally settled on staring at Willow.

  “So how do you feel about all of this?” She decided to see if the child was even upset before she got truly angry at the twin spirits this time.

  “I dunno?” Willow said with a head tilt. “The change wasn’t comfy, but I feel fine now. It isn’t any weirder than turning myself to stone, and honestly it could be fun to be a boy for a bit.”

  Yeah. He could try out being a boy for a little while, and if he didn’t like it he’d just always stop his training exercises on the yin cycle. He smiled and nodded to himself, curly hair bouncing.

  His aunt chuckled. “That’s a very you response to this mess.”

  Willow shrugged. “I mean it’s probably not a big deal if I can just change back whenever.”

  “We still aren’t entirely sure you can.” She reminded him.

  “Eh, I trust Harmony. If she says I can, then I can. No need to worry about it until it’s actually an issue tomorrow.” His core was a bit too sore right now to attempt it today, and he had already decided to give this whole boy thing a try anyways.

  “You’re the one who has to tell your father and brother, by the way.” Jieun said with a light smirk. “Including the part where you might not be able to change back.”

  “Would they get upset about it? I really don’t see the big deal.” It was just another transformation type thing he could do. They didn’t complain about the rock form.

  “I honestly have no idea how they’d react, but I’m currently quite perplexed by this whole affair and the rest of your family is a lot less reserved in their displays of emotion. Your brother in particular is quite a hot head.”

  True, Yew can be a bit of a jerk at times. Especially now when one of his friends was far away.

  Hopefully he wouldn’t make a big deal about this when Willow revealed it at dinner.